


Wrong

by ZeNami



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, Implied Ship, Internal Monologue, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-18 23:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1446397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZeNami/pseuds/ZeNami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daniel considers the real reason he hates Cecil Palmer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wrong

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little one-shot full of a fair bit of headcanon because I love speculating on the motivations of slightly obscure and under-explored side characters. :]

Daniel _hated_ Cecil Palmer.

Daniel had plenty of obvious reason to hate Cecil Palmer; he was a liability. He was mouthy. He had a habit of figuring out how to wiggle under the censor bar before a well-aimed stomp could break his little creeping fingers. Cecil was a lot of things that Daniel hated.

Daniel was a man of order. It was why he was a producer and a supervisor in the first place. He knew, at the core of it all, how to make something run smoothly and efficiently without wasting time or resources. He could run a business as flawlessly as a computer could run numbers. Of course he could do this--he was perfect. Literally, really; Strexcorp would attest to that. He passed all of his professional evaluations and standard inspections with a practiced ease that matched his stoic, cool, programmed demeanor.

Cecil was one of very few who seemed to be able to peel back that chilled skin and grind into his gears like a misplaced pin.

But these weren't the real reasons Daniel hated Cecil Palmer.

Daniel stepped out of the booth at last, having finished monitoring the subversive radio rat as he pre-recorded sponsorship messages for the week. Cecil stepped out of the studio at about the same time, already on his cell phone, texting that _nosy scientist boyfriend_ of his, no doubt.

Cecil smiled--too widely--and nodded. "See you tomorrow, Daniel?"

Daniel glared at him, faintly luminous blue eyes fixated. He _hated_ that face. He hated how there was so much _wrong_ with it. He hated how there was so much _wrong_ with this Night Valian thorn in his side.

"Of course," he replied, grinding his jaw. "Nine in the morning, sharp."

He watched Cecil go, standing there perhaps a few moments too long. Perhaps frozen--perhaps struggling, for a moment, to recover from a short-circuit born from such intense distaste.

Perhaps five minutes too long, causing an intern or two to shuffle awkwardly around him down the narrow hallway, before he finally twitched and moved and made for his office.

It _was_ a distaste; some bitter afterburn he couldn't lick from the inside of his mouth, that he couldn't grit out of his perfect teeth. Like cigarette smoke trapped in his clothes, in his hair. He considered it as he sat down at his desk, quickly stacking and organizing documents and timesheets left there by the other staff into piles by colour and priority. At least this sort of busywork wasn't unpleasant.

He almost felt guilty for hating his work. He remembered when he used to like it. Back before this damn involuntary transfer, when he still worked at DBCR. Of course they needed someone with his experience and particular talent here, but.

He remembered working with Kevin.

He remembered how he would sit down in the production booth, with a well-oiled coffee that had just been handed to him; how each recording session and live broadcast would flow without a hitch. He remembered a cheerful and sunny voice that would greet him every morning. He remembered a smiling face--the same face that seemed to have been stolen and twisted by this... imperfect _replicant_. This _joke_ of a man, this mockery of talent that he had to work with now. He had the same face, but the smile was _wrong_. The voice was _wrong_. The organic creases in his skin were _wrong_ , misplaced, or mistimed. It was like watching video footage with the audio just out of sync; an unreachable itch under his white fingernails.

Cecil was so flawed. So imperfect. So unlike Kevin, who was... anything but that.

Kevin was... ideal. He was a people-pleaser. A cohesive team member. A productive professional. He was _perfect_.

And how could Daniel _not_ despise this cracked and incomplete version of that perfection? How could he do anything but hate and abhor such a corruption of his ideal? To have it _paraded_ in front of him five days a week--like some kind of cruel joke?

A black splatter landed with a soft _pap_ on the yellow sheet on the desk. Daniel realized he'd stopped moving, and there was a trickle of warm oil rolling from his lower lip, down the unnaturally smooth surface of his chin.

Absently, he wiped it away on the back of his sleeve, brow furrowed. He set the yellow sheet aside, folding his hands underneath his jaw, closing his eyes for a moment.

This imperfect place. This imperfect _prison_.

Oh well. Eventually, everything would change. Everything would come to be the way it was meant to be. The way _Strexcorp_ meant it to be. It was merely a matter of time.

And of course, Daniel was an expert when it came to time management.


End file.
